The Nation of Islam was founded by Wallace D. Fard Muhammad (~1930 AD) in Detroit and developed by Elijah Muhammad (1897–1975 AD). The NOI is a distinctly American religious movement that combines Islamic elements with Black nationalist ideology and a mythology largely foreign to mainstream Islam: white people were created by an evil scientist named Yakub; Black people are the original people of the earth; Allah appeared in the person of Fard Muhammad. Malcolm X (El-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz) was the NOI’s most famous member before his break with Elijah Muhammad in 1964, his pilgrimage to Mecca, and his embrace of orthodox Sunni Islam. After Elijah Muhammad’s death (1975), his son Warith Deen Mohammed led most NOI members into Sunni Islam. Louis Farrakhan rebuilt the original NOI ideology. The NOI has been significant in Black American culture far beyond its membership numbers.